I suggest that you tell Ikeda Sensei that you are using your time with him at the seminar to support people who say he all but lacks Aiki compared to Harden and company. Tell him the things they say or imply about Saotome Sensei. Better yet, show sensei the whole discussion start to finish. Hugh, I challenge you to do so.

You fail to understand at all what Sensei is doing. I have hosted Sensei on two occasions and have had numerous conversations with him about these issues. I have video footage of him discussing these very issues. Ikeda sensei is blending and joining and applying gravity once he has a balance advantage. He is doing so with an internal emphasis. Some of this he learned from Ushiro Sensei. He sees no contradiction. He does not reject the mainstream notion of Aiki to do so. There is nothing that Sensei is doing that contradicts what Saotome Sensei says about Aiki. Ask him if he contradicts Saotome Sensei. Even the statement about punching an uke who stays in a dangerous place is an endorsement of the need for ukemi.

I am sick of people in ASU being pawns for Harden and people like Harden. They reject what Ikeda does as not what they do and now you try to use him in your embrace of them. You will not use Saotome Sensei and Ikeda Sensei in an attempt to attack me in a public forum and support people like Harden who who are advancing an agenda that says that Saotoome Sensei has not been teaching real Aiki all these years. I won't have it Hugh. Should we ask Sensei what he thinks of this? Harden has implied violence and has suggested, at a minimum, that he plans to cause trouble for Ikeda and Saotome Senseis at a seminar in the future. Are you on the record to support this man after that challenge? Are you speaking for Gleason Sensei and for your dojo?

Yes why don't you ask him?
Gleason and many of your own arts Shihan would probably tell you things about me in such strong terms that you would fall over. It is unseemly for me to say it.
Ikeda not only supports what I do and teach, he has expressed an interest in meeting me in writing. His students want us to meet and train together.
Gleason trains with me regularly
George Ledyard does as well
Josh Drackman -the fellow who tranlates for Saotmes books does as well
I have lost track of so many others who are seniors under Saotome, who himself has commented favorably on my work.

Why don't you mind your own business, or at least check things out before you continue to embarrass yourself by demonstrating that you are out of touch with what the higher level shihan are doing.

You can keep trying, eventually you might realize that you simply don't know what you're talking about and the art has moved past you while.... you're standing there trying to figure out what happened to you. You won't be alone though.

As Mochizuki said to Tamaru, prewar-deshi to post-war deshi (which has not been publicly translated to English yet) "What you guys are doing is not the real Aikido."
Which echoes Shioda "They were no longer practicing Ueshiba's Aikido."
Which echoes Ueshiba himself when he walked in to the Modern Dojo. "This is not my Aikido!"
And when he said. "No one is following me."
We can add many others, but you have not demonstrated an ability to comprehend.
Your delusional re-interpretations of my comments into a new language in "Ken-land" and trying to convince hundreds of people here who know me that I am threatening violence, will only serve to continue to separate you from the rest of us folk reading.
I meant what I said. On any level you care to choose your art will fail with me standing in front of you. Every Aikido Shihan (and every other teacher) who has met me has asked to train with me and we have become friends. This without me doing much at all. Why?
Ueshiba's aiki. It's a truth that stands on it's own....on contact.

Quote:

Harden has implied violence with the sentence:

"You are wise to make a public statement you are not interested in meeting me." Then tries to cover this up by saying, "While I would greet you in a friendly exchange." His full statement is copied below:

"You are wise to make a public statement you are not interested in meeting me. While I would greet you in a friendly exchange, your opinions and your skills, would simply fail you and all you would have left -when it comes to aiki-would be your words. In fact you would be helpless to do aikido on me...at all. Why? You would have to know Ueshiba's aiki in order to do anything to me. And it remains clear, you do not. I will continue to train with the senior staff or your organization, and eventually put hands on Ikeda and Saotome. I will let you know where and when that is. You might want to attend and learn something about what aiki is and can do and what professional behavior is all about. Your behavior is anything but!"